Sunday, June 15, 2014

Tethered

We've had Shadow since he was a puppy, and although that seems like yesterday, seven long years have passed by. We picked him out of one of those "odd lots" of puppies that you find in the "free" section of the newspaper. Granted, he's missing a few nuts and bolts in the intelligence department, but he makes a really good watch dog. Shadow has always been an outside dog. He protects the house and the garden year round, with the exception of days that are too cold for man or beast. All he has ever known is the twenty feet of space surrounding his dog house, and the chain that keeps him there. We walk him on the leash, and in the evening we set him free to run through the fields. When he's done chasing rabbits, he returns to the chain.

I have never understood why he comes back. We release him to run where he pleases, to escape from the confines of his tether, but he always returns to the chain. Isn't that so much like us? God has provided us with a way to break free of our chain, but because it has always been such a part of us, we're afraid to let it go. There's comfort in the bondage. There's familiarity in the feel of that tug on our necks that keeps us where we are and prevents us from moving any farther forward. It's not that we don't have a way to escape, it's that we choose not to take it.

Job 36:8 But if men are bound in chains, held fast by cords of affliction,9 he tells them what they have done-- that they have sinned arrogantly.10 He makes them listen to correction and commands them to repent of their evil.11 If they obey and serve him, they will spend the rest of their days in prosperity and their years in contentment.12 But if they do not listen, they will perish by the sword and die without knowledge.13 "The godless in heart harbor resentment; even when he fetters them, they do not cry for help.A reminder today that there is power in the name of Jesus to break every chain. --Jesus Culture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtyVdC7E6Wo